SHVC-8X-(G728314) / SNS-8x

1994-11-26 / 1994-11-21

Action / Platformer

Description

When used with Nintendo Power Memory carts, this game takes up 8 blocks for the game and 1 for the save file. The Nintendo Power cost is 1000 yen.

In the Sears 1994 Canadian Wishbook it appears with a different box art without any 3D renderings and instead a classic Donkey Kong style logo with the word Country under it and an old style barrel.

Here is the article excerpt from "Chopping Block: Gamin' for Grrrrls" by Barbara Hanscome in Game Developer Oct. / Nov. 1995:

Donkey Kong Country
Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country wasn't designed "for girls" or with girls in mind, but girls certainly like it. In a nationwide survey of 1,600 kids take by interactive TV producer Margy Gilman, Donkey Kong was listed in the top five favorite games of girls (along with Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lion King, and -believe it or not- Mortal Kombat).

The game takes players on a jungle adventure with two primates: Donkey Kong (a big macho ape) and Diddy (a small, agile monkey). Your goal is to help them recapture their horde of bananas, which have been stolen from them by the evil Kremlings. You help Donkey and Diddy run and jump over obstacles, grab ropes and swing through the forest, even swim through water worlds capturing bananas, letters (that spell out Donkey Kong of course), and extra lives. You've got to move fast or any number of beasts will run you down. When you "lose a life," you start over from the beginning of the level; if you lose several lives in succession you "die" and start over from the beginning.

Going by the research into what girls like in games, there would be little in Donkey Kong to get a girl hooked on video gaming. The game isn't based in reality; nor does it involve a story. (You're supposed to be helping Donkey and Diddy regain their hoard of bananas, but if you don't read the players guide, you don't know this or care.) Game feedback is based on the number of points you score and the level you achieve- which research says girls find less motivating than feedback based on trying. So why is the game popular with girls? Could it be that a large number of girls out there enjoy the fast action, the funny animations, and three-dimensionally rendered jungle worlds, and the challenge of attaining points and mastering levels?

Candy Kong Pictured: Unfortunately, Candy Kong, the only female character in Donkey Kong Country, serves as little more than a showpiece.

What I find disappointing in Donkey Kong is that the game features only one female character: Candy Kong, an ape in a hot-pink bathing suit with nothing better to do than pose provocatively in a booth and help Donkey and Diddy save their points. Basically, she's stuck playing Vanna White while the guys go out for a swingin' banana hunt. Humph! That not very "gender inclusive."

Another gripe: you're deprived of most of the game until you reach a certain level of skill. Donkey Kong contains seven environments, and 40 levels. Each level is wonderfully different and features new obstacles and characters, which you'll never see unless you play the game well enough and score high enough to reach these levels. Game developers I've spoken with call this setup "having to earn the game," and they say girls find this game plan more of a turn-off than blood-spurting from a corpse any day.

Sure, girls can master the game just as well as boys can, but research suggests that they'll become bored (or frustrated) with the experience long before that will happen.

Donkey Kong Country 2 coming out this December, might have a more "girl appeal." Girls might find the goal of the game more "worthwhile": you're actually trying to save Donkey Kong from capture by the evil Kremlings. But more important, it stars a female character (at last, a female saving a male in distress!). This game stars Dixie Kong, Diddy's little monkey friend, who sports a pink t-shirt and a long, platinum-blonde ponytail. Some might argue that she's really just Diddy in drag, but it's hard not to smile when watching her in action. Face it, she's cute. And she takes the lead throughout the game, dragging Diddy around and leaping above obstacles, her ponytail whipping about like a propeller. According to a Nintendo spokesperson, the company hopes Dixie will be the next flagship character for the Nintendo line.

Note: Errors in the copy were fixed, paragraph 2 had the first instance of Donkey misspelled as Donky. Also the collected letters spell out KONG, not Donkey Kong, and the description of how the game is "scored" is generally incorrect.

So ReyVGM pulled me away from my YouTube to remind me that I forgot to put a ROM up. OOPS. I got too caught up in goofy Satellawave modifications. Silly me! A few months back (Well, at this point QUITE...